Hard Time: A Brit in America’s Toughest Jail By Shaun Attwood Mainstream Publishing 2010 ISBN: 1845966511 $16 Reviewed by Christopher Zoukis Most people are happily ignorant of the difference between the term ‘jail’ and ‘prison.’ And since you don’t learn the difference until after you’ve been arrested, ignorance is indeed bliss. Jail is where prisoners […]

By Christopher Zoukis Hasenmatz will fliegen is the title of the story in Germany, where it was first published. It was written and illustrated by Rolf Fanger and Ulrike Moltgen. In English the title is Benjamin Bunny Learns to Fly. It’s a story for children. Benjamin Bunny decides he would like to fly like his […]

One of the better interviews with William Gibson, who is quite a character: intelligent, funny, well-spoken, with a lost-in-translation manner of speaking that borders on stream of consciousness mixed with thoughtful premeditation.

By Christopher Zoukis Image courtesy www.telegraph.co.uk- No one came to the funeral. Instead of a fancy coffin there was a cardboard box. Before the body had been placed in the box, it was checked for jewelry. Rings and a wristwatch were removed and set aside. Then the lid was slipped over the top edges of […]

In today’s world, most people are familiar with the terms ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist.’ And because of the omnipresence of the media, many people are aware of bioterrorism, but only as a concept. Fortunately, very few people have come into contact with bioterrorism. Yet bioterrorism is real and it’s scary.

In his bio-thriller – Codon Zero – author Jim Hendee brings the reader face to face with bioterrorism and its lethal consequences. As the story opens, retired U.S. intelligence officer Jason Stouter is approached by Dr. Chance Bonnard, a biochemical engineer. Dr. Bonnard informs Jason Stouter that he has a formulated a cure for the rare disease that afflicts Jason’s son. If Jason will do Dr. Bonnard a favor, the doctor will cure his son.

Another of Haggard’s readers, Madame Blavatsky, asserted that Queen Ayesha embodied the first principle of the Theosophical doctrine, which stated there was a single, underlying inseparable Truth that had no cause and no beginning, thus unknowable and indescribable. According to Blavatsky, it was Be-ness rather than Be-ing. Yet this Be-ness comprised in its aspect the idea of absolute Abstract Motion, which encompassed the quality of Change.

In other words, Queen Ayesha represented life, consciousness, and spirit. Each of these three energies was dynamic and evolutionary. Haggard took the two concepts – dynamism and evolution – and presented them in the reincarnated Queen Ayesha. “My empire is of the imagination,” says She. When the adventurers try to teach her Christian doctrine, she shrugs them off, saying, “The religions come and the religions pass, and civilizations come and pass, and naught endures but the world and human nature.”